


Hold It Against Me

by mutterandmumble



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Blood, Established Relationship, Insecurity, M/M, Mild Language, Nervous Habits, Repetition, Self-Esteem Issues, Skin-picking, Social Anxiety, and lack thereof, hand-holding, including - Freeform, nail-biting, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 18:00:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18145544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutterandmumble/pseuds/mutterandmumble
Summary: He can’t stand his face. He avoids mirrors like the plague. He hates his own hands- his ugly and bent, torn and scabbed hands- with a passion, and a vehement, angry, overwhelming satisfaction. He degrades and derides himself, he shoves his hands into his pockets, and then he hates himself some more. He’s had a vindictive run of things. He’s growing cold.Or: Insecurity makes something simple into something very, very difficult





	Hold It Against Me

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warnings:
> 
> The nervous habits depicted here/alluded to are skin picking, nail biting, skin biting, and hair pulling. There is a brief depiction of blood as a result of the picking.
> 
>  
> 
> On another note entirely, I actually started writing this instead of paying attention in math. And now I’m posting it instead of writing my four page essay due tomorrow, so it’s the culmination of all of my procrastination

Kenma’s been awake for a long, long time.

 

Maybe that was his first mistake. Or maybe not; he’s made a good number of mistakes in his seventeen years of life, so this could well be nothing more than one more misstep in a series of stumbles and stutters. An irrelevant blot. A brick in the proverbial wall.

 

The very, very  _ tall _ proverbial wall.

 

Regardless, he’s been awake for much too long. Because he’s been awake for much too long, he’s had to take some breaks from playing his game. Because he’s had to take some breaks from playing his game, he’s had far too much time to think. And because he’s had far too much time to think, he’s over and over again indulged that worry that’s been lingering at the forefront of his mind 

 

His realizations have been short. Whether they are accurate, he does not know; he’s much too invested the situation to be neutral.

 

What he knows for  _ sure _ is that he and Shouyou have been dating for a good few weeks, but they have not held hands. 

 

It’s his fault. He’s too ashamed.

 

Not of Shouyou-  _ never  _ of Shouyou, he’s very, very proud of Shouyou- but of himself. Of the state that he leaves himself in after bouts of nervous energy. About the discolored skin he leaves in his wake. And because of that, because of that anxiety, and that shame, he can’t reach out. Not even once.

 

It’s not that big of a deal. It’s not. It  _ shouldn’t  _ be that big of a deal; he likes Shouyou, and Shouyou likes him, and there’s very little else to it. That’s it. That’s that. Definitively, with little room for doubt, less room for worry, and no room at all for contention. He likes Shouyou, Shouyou likes him, they like each other, and they’re secure. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

But they haven’t held hands. 

 

Because (and only because) something in Kenma’s gone wrong. Something’s twisted and bent out of place, a wire has snapped and now is scraping and itching against his skull. He can’t stand his face. He avoids mirrors like the plague. He hates his own hands- his ugly and bent, torn and scabbed hands- with a passion, and a vehement, angry, overwhelming satisfaction. He degrades and derides himself, he shoves his hands into his pockets, and then he hates himself some more. He’s had a vindictive run of things. He’s growing cold.

 

So the distinct lack of hand-holding in their relationship is, at its core and without a doubt, his own fault. Shouyou’s reached out before; he’s brushed the back of his hand against Kenma’s, he’s let his hand settle on the armrest between them at the movie theater, he’s draped his arm over Kenma’s, he’s-

 

He’s done a lot. Shouyou’s gone above and Shouyou’s gone beyond, while Kenma’s had to struggle to eke the slightest bit of effort from himself. Shouyou’s nice in that he draws that sort of passion from him with ease, the sort that sets the both of them on fire and draws genuine care from where it meanders in the back of his mind. It’s nice to feel invested so easily. Kenma’s not like Shouyou- Kenma’s obsessive and off-putting, dormant until something captures his interest and none too good at putting up a front. He's not energetic. He’s not likable or bold. He’s like a person shifted an inch or two to the left; a bit too strange. He doesn’t care like he should.

 

But he tries. He does. He tries hard.

 

Still, though, each and every time Shouyou reaches out, Kenma snatches his hand away. He wants to  _ touch _ , of course he does, and he wants to be close, but it’s one of those things that seems astronomically difficult. Borderline impossible. He’s made too much of a mark; his bloodied and chewed-on hands should stay right in his pockets where they belong.

 

They can’t. They can’t. He gets nervous so, so easily, he’s nervous right down to his bones, and when he’s nervous he  _ has  _ to move. He needs to pull out his hair, and pick at the spots on his face, and bite his nails and bite his knuckles and bite his fingers and pick at his cuticles until they bleed. He  _ has  _ to wring his hands, he  _ has  _ to tap on tabletops. He needs to make fists.

 

He needs his hands to be free when he’s nervous. 

And he’s always, always nervous.

 

(He’s always,  _ always _ nervous.)

 

So hand-holding is out of the question. 

 

But there’s a little part of his brain that whispers-and only whispers, never shouts or screams or warbles- that maybe, maybe one day. Because despite it all, despite his nervous tapping and movement and picking and pulling, he wants to hold Shouyou’s hand. He really, really does.

 

In theory, he could have the chance within the hour. Shouyou’s coming down from Miyagi for the weekend. They’ve made plans. They’re going to go out. They don’t go  _ out  _ out for dates often, because Kenma doesn’t like crowds, and Shouyou doesn’t like it when Kenma is unhappy, but on the rare occasion they do it’s to an arcade or theater. Not tonight, though; tonight’s special. Tonight marks a full month of dating.

 

A full month where Kenma has not managed to hold Shouyou’s hand.

 

They’re going out to a small restaurant. Nothing too fancy or overbearing, nothing overwhelming or crowded. It’s going to be nice. Nerve-wracking at first, but Shouyou has a way of putting him at ease. 

 

It’s going to be fun.

 

It’s going to be fun.

 

Try as he might to reassure himself, he pulls at the skin around his cuticles as he gets dressed for their date. He eventually decides on a nice pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, because though he tries so very hard, he can’t force himself to wear short-sleeves in public. Shouyou won’t mind; Shouyou never minds. Shouyou’s very accommodating.

 

Kenma likes him very, very much.

 

Shouyou arrives at Kenma’s door a full six minutes late, a neon green backpack slung over his shoulder and a bright smile on his face.

 

“Kenma!” He throws his arms wide. Kenma indulges him, copying the gesture with decidedly less enthusiasm, but making up the difference by being the first to move in for the hug. They stand there for a moment, a bit awkwardly, but Shouyou is warm and Kenma missed him enough not to care. They do have to part eventually, they’re coming dangerously close to the time of their reservation, and something in Kenma is rather upset by that, but then Shouyou smiles at him again, so he thinks that he’ll be able to manage.

 

“I’ve got so much to tell you, but I gotta go put this away first,” Shouyou continues. “So c’mon!”

 

Then he latches onto Kenma’s arm and proceeds to drag him up the stairs of his  _ own  _ house and into his  _ own  _ room. The backpack is thrown onto the bed and Shouyou follows, settling precariously on the edge and pulling Kenma down gently beside him. He pats his arm once, softly, and then lets go, scrambling behind him for his bag.

 

“Wallet, wallet, going out so I need to find my wallet,” he sings quietly, words devolving into broken hisses and vowels as his attention shifts fully to the task at hand.

 

Kenma watches for a moment as Shouyou struggles with the zipper, now mumbling under his breath, until he manages to pull his wallet from where it was tucked into a side pocket. He holds it victoriously above his head, turning to grin at Kenma.

 

And it’s adorable. It really is, but it’s also 17:10, and they’ve only got so much time.

 

“Shouyou,” Kenma says quietly. Shouyou lowers his wallet and cocks his head, staring at Kenma with wide, brown eyes. “It’s almost time to go.”

 

Shouyou looks confused for a moment, tilting his head towards his distinctly watch-less wrist before squeaking and pulling his phone out instead. His eyes bug when he sees the time. And because Shouyou is expressive, and Shouyou talks and feels in wide, sweeping gestures, he also curls his shoulders and groans. Kenma hides a small smile behind his hand.

 

“Kenma, Kenma, we gotta go!” Shouyou chirps. He springs up from the bed, shoving the wallet into his pocket and snapping his head towards the door. 

 

“Gotta hurry, gotta hurry,” he murmurs. Then he’s off like a rocket, footsteps thudding down the stairs. Kenma takes his time; Shouyou won’t get far without him, and sure they’re pressed for time but they’re not  _ that  _ pressed for time. It will be alright. It will be alright.

 

Without his phone in his hand, without Shouyou by his side, without something to occupy his mind, his fingers travel to his cuticles. By the time he’s reached the stairwell, he’s torn his skin; by the time he’s reached the bottom, he’s drawn blood. Shame wells up inside of him, ugly and oppressive. He tamps it down the best that he can-it’s none too effective, he’s trying to hold down something that expands and unfolds in the blink of an eye, but try he must because Shouyou is waiting there for him, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

 

“You move so slowly, Kenma,” he groans. The blood is tracing down Kenma’s finger, pooling at the base of his nail.

 

“You just move really fast,” Kenma mumbles. The shame rears its ugly, ugly head as the blood continues to spread. “Now gimme a moment I gotta use the bathroom.”

 

“Alright!” Shouyou calls as Kenma rushes away, letting his hair fall across his face and clutching his hand to his chest. The last he sees of Shouyou, he’s shoving his hands into the pocket of his hoodie and humming as he goes back to rocking. He’s chewing on his bottom lip, too, and at times like this Kenma thinks that maybe,  _ maybe  _ Shouyou wouldn’t mind the torn skin. Or the hardened skin around his knuckles. Or the way his hands go papery and dry during the colder months, and the warmer months, and all of the months in-between. Maybe, maybe.

 

He washes the blood from his hands in the bathroom sink. It doesn’t take long. The soap stings. There’s not enough blood to run the water red. 

 

He dries his hands and walks back out to Shouyou. Shouyou’s taken to pacing, now, up and down the hallways and along the worn floorboards as he looks at the family pictures. He coos at the ones from years and years ago, lets his eyes light up, and Kenma feels his face begin to burn. So he walks over and tugs on Shouyou’s arm, dragging him from the photos to an outburst of disappointed grumbling. He pulls Shouyou down and out the door, keeping the fabric of his hoodie caught between his fingers even when Shouyou falls into pace beside him. It’s soft. Shouyou doesn’t mind (Shouyou never minds) as he launches into a story involving a competition, Kageyama, and twelve meat buns.

 

“I almost won, I swear! Kageyama cheated, that… that… I don’t know! But he’s nothing good, I can tell you that.”

 

“I believe you,” Kenma mumbles. He’s standing close to Shouyou, very, very close, and it’s nice but Shouyou is still bursting at the seams with energy and Kenma can’t help but wonder if that energy would be of better use in swinging their linked hands between them.

 

He thinks so.

 

He can’t focus on Shouyou’s words throughout the rest of the walk. He’s stuck instead on their close proximity, on Shouyou’s warmth and happiness as he pulls Kenma along, on his own inability and neverending shame. They keep walking. Kenma thinks of his hands, shoves them both into his pocket, and shuffles a bit closer to Shouyou.

 

He stays close as they step over cracks in the sidewalk. Shouyou makes a game of it, trying to coax Kenma into hopping at the same time that he does; once, twice, three times he fails before Kenma indulges him with one tiny little jump. Shouyou gasps, pushing against Kenma’s shoulder.

 

“There we go! I knew you had it in ya.”

 

Kenma flushes, burrowing his face down into his sweatshirt. That is  _ quite  _ enough of that.

 

So his feet stay firmly on the ground, save for the one-two, one-two of walking, until the restaurant comes into sight. Shouyou opens the door with an air of righteous determination, striding up to the host with the most purpose he can when he’s five-foot-five and as intimidating as a goldfish. 

 

“Reservation for Hinata,” he says cheerily. The server nods and directs them to a booth in the corner before taking his leave.

 

The restaurant is small, and the booth even smaller. Their knees knock together beneath the table as Shouyou swings his legs and hums, perusing the menu.

 

“Ah, there’s so many options! What are you going to get, Kenma?”

 

Kenma hasn’t even looked at the menu. He’s been sent headfirst into a tailspin of worry and wonder, because this table is so ridiculously  _ small _ that his and Shouyou’s hands will never be more than a foot apart. 

 

“Kenma?” Shouyou asks. He nudges Kenma with his foot. “Kenma. Kenmaaaaaaa. Earth to Kenma. Are you okay? Do you have your phone?”

 

Kenma jumps, startled from his reverie. 

 

“I’m okay. I’m…” he wrinkles his nose, unsure how to continue.  _ I am okay,  _ he’s trying to say, as in,  _ all the way okay,  _ as in,  _ don’t need a distraction okay.  _

 

“Alright!” Shouyou says. He goes back to his menu, understanding fully. Every now and then, Kenma forgets that Shouyou can read a person with a terrifying ease. Every now and then, Kenma is forced to remember.

 

“I think I know what I’m gonna get. Have you decided?” Shouyou continues, oblivious to Kenma’s internal monologue. Or maybe not. Maybe Shouyou is reading him now, picking him apart and pulling him to pieces. 

 

Kenma chastises himself- Shouyou’s not a mind reader. If he were, this would probably be easier.

 

As it is, Kenma hasn’t even picked up the menu.

 

“I think so.”

 

Dammit.

 

With that, the waiter comes by to take their order. Kenma struggles through ordering the safest thing that he can, and again they are left alone.

 

“So what’ve you been doing lately? We text all the time, but it’s just not the same, right?”

 

“Right,” Kenma mumbles. 

 

It  _ is _ different when they’re right in front of each other- more real, more actual, more  _ there _ . More concrete. More physical.

 

“I haven’t been doing much lately,” Kenma continues. Also true. Two times in the past week, he’s gone four consecutive hours without leaving his room.

 

“Me neither, really. It’s been so  _ booorring.  _ It’s better now that I’m with you, though!” Shouyou says.

 

Kenma hunches, face flushing. He shares the sentiment, but not quite that openly. Or loudly.

 

In the face of Kenma’s continued silence, Shouyou starts up a steady stream of words. His hands creep up until they’re tapping on the tabletop between them, incessantly rapping and knocking and poking. Kenma’s own hands settle up near his mouth, and he begins to chew on his knuckle.

 

_ Tap. Tap. Tap. _ Shouyou talks on.

 

Kenma bites.

 

And bites. 

 

He hasn’t always done this. He can pinpoint a specific moment, a life-altering shift in his paradigm brought about by boredom, where he sat staring off into space, and then looked down at his hands and  _ wondered _ .

 

And he wondered. And he wondered.

 

And he wondered.

 

And he acted.

 

A person who bites at their skin may experience the following: noticeable discoloration, hardening of the bitten area in question, a tendency towards chapped skin and the constant sting of insecurity. 

 

Kenma’s knuckles are reddish-brown. The creases in the skin are near nonexistent.

 

_ Tap. Tap. Tap.  _ Shouyou talks on. Kenma moves to gnaw at his nails.

 

He actively chose to engage in nail-biting too, as a means of stress-relief. And curiosity;  _ can  _ a person, he had wondered, pick up a habit so easily?

 

(Nail-biting came after biting, came after skin-picking, came after hair-pulling. He knew the answer.)

 

Nail-biting is common. Exceptionally so, because the human population as a whole is a little high-strung.

 

As it’s so common, there are a good number of ways to get a person to stop biting their nails: nail polish (clear or otherwise), cutting them short, redirecting the urge, and distraction, distraction, distraction.

 

And knowledge. Familiarity with yourself, your surroundings, your place and your limits and your function. Recognizing patterns. Processing information. Learning what you can.

 

Nail-biting, like hair-pulling or skin-picking, is often an automatic action. The afflicted person is unaware that they’re carrying it out; it happens in dips and furrows, when there’s nothing else to do, and the spaces between activity become filled with repetition.

 

Kenma knowingly bites his nails. His fingers. The skin of his knuckles. The fleshy part of his index finger. 

 

He hates it.

 

Shouyou’s hands stop moving. The waiter comes around with their drinks. Shouyou chews absentmindedly on his straw. His hands rest in the table as his speaking stops in favor of the sitting and staring off into space that comes with a natural lull in conversation.

 

Without a distraction, Kenma’s fingers travel to his cuti-

 

No. 

 

There are people in the restaurant. There are a lot of people, and he gets nervous around any people at all. Not tonight, though. Tonight is special. Tonight marks one full month of dating, with one of the few people he genuinely likes to be around, so tonight he will not fall prey to habit.

 

Kenma takes a deep breath. He sets both hands flat on the table.

 

Like this, there are six inches between their hands- there is no space between their knees, between their legs and ankles, which brush and tangle as Shouyou kicks idly. He stirs the ice in his drink. Kenma looks down to his hands, to the thickened skin of his knuckles and the wrinkled skin stretching over his bones. The bones jut up and out, slashing through his skin and traveling down into the sleeve of his sweatshirt. There’s a scar on his left index finger.

 

They’re ugly.

 

Six inches.

 

“Hey, Kenma?” Shouyou says.

 

He could reach out- he could. He doesn’t think that Shouyou would suddenly come to hate him because the skin around his nails is a little uneven. That would be viciously uncharacteristic, an extreme behavioral change that would be worrying more than anything else. 

 

So Kenma’s being ridiculous.

 

“Are you okay?” Shouyou continues.

 

“Yes,” Kenma lies openly, shamelessly, obviously. Shouyou’s brow furrows. His cheeks puff out, his hands start up their tapping and Kenma has been caught in the middle of his clumsy lie.

 

“Are you sure?” Shouyou asks. Despite what anyone at all may think, and the jabs made at Shouyou’s simplicity by friends and enemies alike, and despite Shouyou’s cheerful temperament and general happiness, he can pack disapproval and worry into so few words with so much ease.

 

“Yes,” Kenma lies again, because life is difficult like that. If he voices his insecurity than the world could well come crashing down.

 

“Ah,” Shouyou replies. His tapping gets faster and faster. 

 

It’s silent for a moment. Strain, Kenma thinks, there’s strain, and there’s strain so Kenma  _ worries _ , because silence with Shouyou is never strained, never-ever-ever, not at all.

 

“Hey, Kenma?” Shouyou says.

 

Six inches between them. If he could close that gap, there would be no problems. 

 

“I really like you, you know.”

 

Kenma feels heat flood into his cheeks. His face, he is sure, is bright red. His hands certainly are, red and bordering on purple near their tips, bursts of blue crowding along the lines of his veins and the skin of his knuckles hardened and chapped.

 

He really, really likes Shouyou.

 

“And if you’re uncomfortable, we can leave.”

 

“I’m not uncomfortable.”

 

Insecure, yes. Unfortunate, without a doubt. Certainly annoyed with himself. 

 

But uncomfortable?

 

“Alright! Our food should be coming out soon. What did you end up getting again?”

 

No.

 

“The chicken.”

 

“I’ve never been here, so I honestly couldn’t tell you if the chicken is any good,” Shouyou says, wrinkling his nose. They’re by the windows, far back in the corner of the restaurant, close enough to hear the cars rushing by outside. The light from the afternoon sun catches on Shouyou’s eyes, on the bits of brown and blond that thread through the burnt red of his hair, on the planes of his jaw and the curve of his cheekbone. He’s- well, he’s a lot of things, he’s loud and supportive and determined and cheerful, he’s observant and kind, and between the delicate cast of his features and the way his fingers tap and his head tilts and bobs, he’s  _ pretty _ .

 

Kenma really, really likes him.

 

“Honestly though, chicken at most places is pretty good. The only people I know who’ve actually messed up  _ chicken  _ are Suga and well… me, and I guess Suga doesn’t  _ really  _ count, because he wasn’t cooking chicken, he was just reheating it, but he left a fork in the tupperware so he almost set everything on fire.”

 

A lot.

 

“Suga’s great. He helps me study. We both can’t cook.”

 

Six inches, five inches, four.

 

“The whole team’s great, actually, except for  _ Tsukishima _ , because  _ Tsukishima’s  _ mean, and he also can make origami cranes and won’t help me make one, but every time I try to teach myself I end up with a crumpled ball of paper, and I don’t know how but it’s definitely his fault.”

 

He could reach out now and put an end to this; he could put an end to this. He could do something. He’s borderline competent. 

 

And he’s insecure. And worrisome.

 

“I could figure it out, I swear!”

 

Kenma’s not stupid. 

 

“The instructions are just so vague. And they’re either videos or these weird diagrams, and-“

 

Shouyou’s not stupid.

 

“- those are even  _ worse, _ but every now and then I find-“

 

And their relationship is not tentative. It’s new, certainly, but it’s comfortable, and the jump from friendship to romantic relationship was natural. 

 

But- well. Before Shouyou, romance was something  _ other  _ to him; something for other people, for some other time, for some other place. Falling for Shouyou as fully as he has is out of place. Out-of-character. This is not something that he ever thought he’d experience. This is not something he ever thought he’d have to fix.

 

“-some with pictures! Those are the best because-“

 

Shouyou wouldn’t care if Kenma didn’t want to hold his hand. 

 

“- you can actually see what the steps are supposed to look like. I still couldn’t-“

 

But Kenma  _ wants  _ to hold Shouyou’s hand. He does. It’s a stupid, small little thing, to hold your  _ boyfriend’s  _ hand, and he can’t do it. And as much as he tries to convince himself otherwise, as much as he tries to justify and give himself the benefit of the doubt, it’s humiliating. He shouldn’t be embarrassed, especially for something he can’t control, but he is; he is.

 

“-figure it out!”

 

He is embarrassed.

 

“So I-“

 

He is.

 

“-tried my best-“

 

And fuck it.  _ Fuck it.  _ Fuck. It.

 

Kenma is embarrassed. He’s self-conscious. He gets so nervous around people that it hurts. He wants to hunch up his shoulders and curl in on himself and push his head between his knees until he’s devoid of emotion. He doesn’t want anyone to look at him ever again. He wants to never leave the house- he wants to sit beneath a pile of blankets where he’s warm and he’s safe and he feels comfortable, and he wants to be able to wear bright colors, and he wants to be able to have his hair in a braid in public without getting so upset that he has to take it out. 

 

He wants to be loud. He wants to be able to tap and fidget and pick and pull and bite and prod.

 

He wants to be able to do something as simple as hold Shouyou’s hand.

 

“-but it’s not as easy as it looks!”

 

Four inches. Three inches. Two.

 

Kenma is tired.

 

“So that’s why Tsukishima is a jerk and origami is overrated,” Shouyou huffs. “Stupid paper.”

 

One. 

 

Kenma is tired.

 

Closer, closer, closer.

 

How long, he wonders, until he gets uncomfortable? Until he  _ has  _ to pull away, whether he wants to or not? 

 

Three-quarters. Half-an-inch.

 

It’ll be worth it, he thinks.

 

One-quarter. One-eighth.

 

He really, really does.

 

One-eighth. One-sixteenth. 

 

One twenty-fourth.

 

One forty-eighth.

 

No space at all.

 

Shouyou’s hands are warm. That doesn’t come as a surprise; Shouyou’s the type of person who up and gunning at any and all hours, so of  _ course _ he would be warm. There are calluses on his fingertips, little nicks and bumps along his fingers, small creases and folds along his palms. Kenma brushes his thumb over the back of Shouyou’s knuckles, passing over he small freckles dotting his skin.

 

There’s a big, wide smile on Shouyou’s face. He makes a happy squeak- there’s no other word for it, it’s high-pitched and excited and very much  _ Shouyou _ \- and threads his fingers rightly and fully through Kenma’s. 

 

It’s nice. And it’s warm, and his worry is still lingering in the back of his mind, but this is something that he could get used to.  Even if the sting of shame, and the squirm of insecurity and the writhing of fear are always mingling somewhere in his stomach (and he really does think that they might never leave) this is something that he could get used to. This is something good. Safe. Warm.

 

The waiter comes by with their food. Kenma does not let go of Shouyou’s hand. They eat; Kenma does not let go of Shouyou’s hand.

 

They split the bill.

 

They walk back to Kenma’s house, hands swinging between them.

 

Shouyou doesn’t say a word about it. He tightens his hold on Kenma’s hand, and he doesn’t jump over the cracks in the sidewalk- there’s a bounce in his step, and his eyes are bright. He looks happy.

 

And as the sun sets behind them, and the sidewalk and the trees and Shouyou are cast in a dying orange light, as the clouds overhead stretch and tug into wispy strands and the trees rustle in the breeze, Kenma thinks that he could stay like this forever. 

 

And as his worries about his hands, and his skin, and his face surge, he knows that  _ forever  _ is not possible quite yet.

 

But really might love Shouyou, and he really does love holding his hand.

 

So baby steps, then. Hold hands at a restaurant, hold hands on the wall home, recuperate for a moment or two. Build up, bit-by-bit, thicken his skin and learn some confidence. Take it slow.

 

Maybe, if he tries, and works and toils, he and Shouyou will arrive at forever.

 

(Hand-in-hand.)

 

Maybe.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was surprisingly difficult to write. I had to do tons of revision
> 
> Anyways, please leave a comment if you enjoyed! I love hearing from you guys!


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